Maria Bartiromo Leaving CNBC For FBN

“After 20 years of groundbreaking work at CNBC, Maria Bartiromo will be leaving the company as her contract expires on November 24,” a CNBC spokesperson tells TVNewser. “Her contributions to CNBC are too numerous to list but we thank her for all of her hard work over the years and wish her the best.”

Drudge Report, which was first to report the news, says Bartiromo will anchor a daily FBN program during the market hours and also have a role on Fox News.

Bartiromo will re-join Fox News chairman Roger Ailes, who first put her on the air when he ran CNBC. She will also be reunited with Lou Dobbs, who was her boss at CNN in the early 1990s. As Bartiromo recounted to TVNewser in 2011, Dobbs told her a move to CNBC would be a big career mistake:

But Lou Dobbs wanted to restructure the newsroom and I was on the assignment desk, so Lou promoted me to senior producer for the morning shows and I was upset, because it would put me on the overnights again, and take me out of the field. So after all my crying — I used to cry on the 22nd floor of CNN — I went back and put together my reel. Re-shooting the stories I’d produced. And I sent it to CNBC and Peter Sturtevant and Roger Ailes said “we want to put you on the air.” I went to Lou and I said, “Lou, I’m leaving.” And he said, “Maria, you’re making the biggest mistake of your life.”

More: Bartiromo’s remarks on leaving CNBC: “After twenty great years of having a front row seat to some of the most important economic stories in the world, it’s hard to sum up the gratitude and appreciation I have for the team that helped make it happen. I am incredibly proud of what we have been able to accomplish. I want to thank all the people at CNBC who have been with me on this journey, and of course the viewers and investors everywhere for making me love every minute of it.”